Latest news with #careworkers
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Democrat says Trump should let in migrants or there'll be no one to perform basic care
A Democrat representative from Vermont backed immigration in the United States by saying that there will be no one to perform basic care if immigration is restricted. Becca Balint made the remarks during a constituent town hall in Newport, Vermont, that took place on May 28. 'If we don't have avenues for people to come here legally to work or to build a home here … we're not going to have anybody around to wipe our a**es because we don't have enough people,' Balint said. Balint's comments also drew ire from social media users. Conservative radio host Todd Starnes wrote on X that he had 'no idea the citizens of Vermont employed illegals to clean their nether regions.' 'Republican Becca Balint is enraged because she's going to have to wipe her own buttocks,' he stated.
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Health
- Washington Post
U.K. to cut foreign workers, the ‘backbone' of British nursing homes
LONDON — The 23-year-old Nigerian man handed the 78-year-old British woman her noon pill and, on a sunny June day, sat down for a little chat amid the family photos lining her wall. 'Will you miss me if I leave?' Jeremiah Akindotun asked with a smile. 'Oh, I think it's too sad Jerry,' said Suad Lawy, sitting back in her chair. 'You get so attached. What's going to happen to our carers?' Akindotun is a health assistant at Hammerson House, a 116-room nursing home in north London where 58 percent of the clinical staff come from 49 different countries. Across the United Kingdom, foreign workers commonly provide intimate care to elderly Brits, with nearly a third of care staff coming from overseas. But maybe not for long. The British government, struggling to address immigration tensions, announced last month that it was ending the special overseas recruitment program that has been a pipeline for care workers in recent years. Officials said the move was necessary to make the care system less dependent on foreign labor and to root out fraud and exploitation in the fast-track care worker visa program, which was initiated five years ago to ease a staffing crisis in the care industry, one of Britain's biggest employment sectors. The plan funneled more than 220,000 workers into facilities around the country, according to a government-sponsored database, but it also faced problems. Most workers landed with legitimate companies, but thousands were scammed in their home countries by fake employment brokers. Others arrived only to be overworked and underpaid, even sexually exploited, under threats of having their visas canceled. Reputable nursing home administrators, however, said canceling the program outright is a body blow to their efforts to fill more than 131,000 open positions in a system that is creaking under the weight of an aging population. Nursing home care is provided by private companies in the U.K. but largely financed by cash-strapped local governments. British citizens show little interest in the jobs, which are considered low pay, low status and demanding, providers say. 'I haven't had a White British applicant in a year,' said Jenny Pattinson, CEO of the nonprofit that runs Hammerson House and another London care home. Underlying all of this is a debate about immigration that continues to convulse Britain, like most Western nations. A decade after its Brexit vote to leave the European Union, the U.K. is still arguing with itself about how multicultural and globally integrated it wants to be, questions that continue to drive politics. The Labour government, generally considered immigration-friendly, announced the end of the care worker visa program less than two weeks after being crushed in English regional elections by Reform UK, a right-wing, populist party started by anti-immigration activist and Brexit-champion Nigel Farage. Reform UK defeated hundreds of Labour and Conservative incumbents and took control of 10 local councils. Critics say Prime Minister Keir Starmer is trying to dent Reform UK's appeal by making his own rightward pivot on immigration. Cutting the care-worker visa was part of a broader package of immigration changes, including doubling the number of years required for visa holders to become permanent residents and raising the English-language requirement for skilled workers. In announcing the measures, Starmer sparked a backlash within his own party by warning that Britain risked becoming 'an island of strangers,' a phrase in which some found echoes of xenophobic rhetoric. In 1968, Enoch Powell was kicked out of the Tory shadow cabinet after saying in his famous 'rivers of blood' speech that White Britons 'found themselves made strangers in their own country.' Starmer rejected the comparison in an interview with the Guardian newspaper, saying that 'migrants make a massive contribution to the UK, and I would never denigrate that.' Immigration has bedeviled both Labour and Conservative prime ministers for years. Both legal immigrants and asylum seekers arriving on small boats surged to a peak of 906,000 by June 2023. The numbers are falling as restrictions imposed by the then Tory government and the new Labour government kick in, with net migration into the country down to 431,000 in measures released in May. But the issue remains divisive as a record 11,074 people arrived in small boats in the first four months of this year. Care home operators accused Starmer of going after their workers because they are easier migrants to block than those crossing the English Channel without permission. 'In my humble opinion, this is a knee-jerk reaction to the surge in votes for Reform,' Pattinson said. 'The government is saying 'Right, we've got to do something about immigration. Where is the largest body of workers coming from abroad? It's the care sector.' There aren't many aspects of British life in which immigration plays a larger, or more emotional, role than in health and social care. Migrants from the British commonwealth, and particularly the postwar 'Windrush' generation of workers recruited from the Caribbean, fill the ranks of beloved National Health Service. Nurses of colors danced and flew through the air as part of a tribute to the NHS in the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics. Lawy, a former secondary schoolteacher from Hampshire, a county that is 90 percent White, who has formed bonds with her Nigerian, South Asian and Filipino caregivers, said she had little experience with multiculturalism before moving to Hammerson House following a stroke. 'It's really opened my mind,' she said. 'My sister used to say she enjoyed living in a diverse community and I really didn't know what she meant,' Lawry said. 'Now I do.' Hammerson House is a Jewish care home. But Ayesha Khan, a Muslim physical therapist from Pakistan who arrived through the visa program last year, said she has felt welcome and useful. Managers told her to step away for prayers whenever she needed to and the only comment she has gotten about her hijab was from a questioner making sure she was not wearing it against her will. 'It's not just a home for residents here, it's a home for me,' Khan said. These ties make the new restrictions even more explosive, experts said, even as they acknowledged that there was a need for some reform of the abuse-prone visa program. 'It's a sacred cow, immigration is the backbone of the U.K. care system,' said Rob McNeil of Oxford University's Migration Observatory. 'There is a snap response, 'Oh my god, how terrible.' But if they don't resolve things at a structural level there will be consistent problems.' The program started in 2020 under Prime Minister Boris Johnson to address a drain of European workers that followed the Brexit vote. A lack of oversight, critics charge, allowed shady enterprises and outright fraudsters to operate alongside legitimate care providers. In a crackdown last year, government investigators revoked the licenses of 470 sponsoring organizations, leaving 39,000 guest workers stranded without jobs. 'A third of our calls now come from care workers,' said Olivia Vicol, head of Work Rights Centre, a legal advocacy group. Nursing home operators say the government has itself to blame for letting the bad actors flourish and that the staffing crisis will only get worse as a result of cutting the whole program without beefing up training, incentives and pay for British citizen to take the jobs. That could create even more political backlash for the government. 'This program was poorly designed at the outset and it's kind of obvious lever to pull when net migration numbers go up,' said Robert Ford, political science professor at the University of Manchester. 'But there will be an uproar if there is major crisis in care homes.' The government said it was immediately suspending new overseas recruitment through the program, but that current visa holders could apply for renewals until 2028. The number of family members workers can bring was cut, and they will now be required to stay 10 years for a sponsoring facility, instead of five, before being free to explore other work. For Akindotun, the health assistant, the changes put his whole future in doubt. With a master's degree in clinical psychology, he and his wife and toddler daughter arrived in the U.K. two years ago with hope that he could eventually work as a therapist. His training has been invaluable in dealing with Hammerson's elderly, infirm residents, he said. 'I have much to give here,' he said before sitting down with a 91-year-old who asks him to draw pictures for her. 'It's very demoralizing to feel that the government don't want us.'
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Less than 4% of exploited care workers helped by UK government scheme
Less than 4% of exploited care workers have reported finding new work in a multimillion-pound government scheme designed to rematch them with new employers. Analysis by the Work Rights Centre found just 3.4% of the 28,000 exploited migrant care workers signposted to a service to find them new jobs had reported being rematched with a new employer, while 131,000 social care vacancies remain unfilled. Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol, chief executive of the charity, said: 'After Covid, England desperately needed more care workers, and thousands of people from around the world answered that call in good faith. 'But instead of jobs they got scams, and instead of justice they got a referral to a programme that simply doesn't work as intended.' Thousands of carers who came to the UK on employer-tied visas were referred to government job-finding services between May 2024 and April 2025 after being found victim of exploitative practices. At least 470 care providers have had their licence to sponsor migrant care workers removed since 2022, after it was found many charged workers thousands in sponsorship fees for jobs that never materialised, or offered work below minimum wage levels, in breach of UK employment and modern slavery laws. New data revealed through freedom of information requests showed that as of 30 April, 941 migrant workers had reported finding alternative employment with bona fide visa sponsors through the government scheme. The government said the self-reported data does 'not provide a complete picture' as 'workers were initially under no obligation to report their employment outcomes'. Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion Last month the government announced plans to ban new recruitment from abroad for care roles and encouraged employers to recruit people from the existing pool of displaced care workers. Adis Sehic, policy manager at the Work Rights Centre, said: 'Part of the government's rationale in ending international recruitment in social care was that thousands of displaced and exploited workers already in England would be given the opportunity to do the jobs they were initially promised.' She said the data suggested that the programme has not been effective and raises 'serious questions marks over the viability of the government's plans to end international recruitment in social care'. 'As bona fide care providers face higher payroll costs, many shy away from taking on new recruits from the cohort of displaced workers,' she said. 'Workers are therefore still in limbo, labour shortages in care continue, and the pressure of caring for England's frail and elderly is only likely to mount further.' The charity is calling for more flexibility for migrant workers to take up jobs in the sector without the costs of Home Office-approved sponsorship, as well as tougher penalties for non-compliant employers, including fines and charges. A government spokesperson said: 'Over 900 workers have been directly matched into new employment thanks to the international recruitment fund and thousands more are being supported through our regional partnerships with CV writing, interview techniques and signposting. 'Since April, employers wanting to recruit migrant care workers need to first consider recruiting from the pool of displaced workers – getting them back to work, into fulfilling careers and boosting productivity. 'To reduce reliance on international care workers in adult social care, and fully crackdown on abuse and exploitation of migrant workers, we have announced that we are putting an end to the overseas care visa.'
News.com.au
03-06-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
Housing crisis help for 220 essential workers
Construction has begun on an affordable housing development offering more than 220 blocks for essential workers. Villawood Properties has officially started work on 'Baya' — a $250m development in Southern Redland Bay, offering 224 lots of land for care workers such as emergency staff, nurses, and teachers, to build new homes. Villawood's Care Worker Support Program is offering an automatic grant of $20,000 for care workers to afford the available lots. Villawood Properties CEO Alan Miller said an important part of this development was giving care workers access to affordable homes at a reasonable distance. 'The whole issue is the whole of southeast Queensland is pretty unsupplied with housing options,' he said. 'Getting people into housing in locations where they work is really the most important thing.' The program has been taken advantage of by more than 400 care workers across Australia, including in Villawood's Beaudesert community, 'Eucalee'. Redland Bay's hospital is currently receiving a $300 million expansion, and Mr Miller said these changes factored into why they picked the area. 'We targeted [Redland Bay] because it's a major growth corridor in Queensland,' he said. 'Very strong demand and supply was very restricted – we thought we could bring something to the market that other developers weren't bringing.' Stage one has now launched, expected to be complete within 18 months. Lots ranging from 358 to 1184 sqm are on offer to Queenslanders, with more than a thousand people having already registered their interest. 'We've had a huge response, not just from care workers but from everyone in all parts of the market,' Mr Miller said. 'What we're looking to do is see how we can keep those prices down.' Residences will move into a spot near both the ocean and 1000 hectares of conservation area, and will have around 1.8 hectares of green space to share within the project itself. Stage one lots begin at $489,000, with the project expected to have seven stages before selling out. The project's full three-year development will give Queenslanders more than 700 jobs across building, administration and landscaping industries.
CTV News
26-05-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Why are Canada's nurses and other health-care workers leaving long-term care? Share your story
As Canada's population ages, there is expected to be a shortage in long-term care workers. (Pexels) Canada faces a challenge of meeting the demand for long-term care workers as the sector's workforce is shrinking, according to a new study. With one of Canada's fastest growing age groups being people 85 and older, long-term care capacity will need to nearly double in the next decade to meet demand, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). The CIHI found that fewer staff mainly worked in the long-term care sector in 2023, at an estimated 13.6 per cent of the health workforce or 50,216 providers, than before the pandemic. These workers include nurse practitioners, registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, occupational therapists and physiotherapists. Recent data shows many of these workers are moving to jobs outside the long-term care industry. For instance, the number of registered psychiatric nurses working in long-term care dropped 42.5 per cent to 315 in 2023, from 548 in 2014. CIHI found in 2023 that most health-care job vacancies were for staff who often work at long-term care facilities, including registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, licensed practical nurses and personal support workers. These vacancies have risen steadily since 2015 and 'remain elevated' for many jobs, according to CIHI. Reasons for the vacancies include retirement, changing jobs or adding positions, the report found. The findings are an overview of recent trends and more data is needed for in-depth analyses, CIHI added. wants to hear from workers about their experiences working in the long-term care industry. Have you left or are you thinking of leaving your job in the sector? Why did you switch jobs, or thinking of making the change? What challenges did you face in your job? What can Canada do to retain workers in the sector? Share your story by emailing us at dotcom@ with your name, general location and phone number in case we want to follow up. Your comments may be used in a story.
